I'm the one who will shed this old skin. Many of you out there, for some inexplicable reason, do not read Savage Love, so it is my duty to show you what you are missing. I am posting the below because I really think it is some of the most sage advice I have ever encountered. This applies to certain of you out there in particular (I'm looking at you, Petit Morceau de Sel). Anyway, I hope you'll find it helpful and join me in the cult of Dan Savage worship.

I decided, at 12 years old, that pregnancy was not something I wanted to worry about, and now, at the ripe age of 26, I'm still a virgin. I exchanged oral favors with my boyfriends, none of whom lasted more than three months. Approximately half said they wanted more, and the other half were only settling for me until someone better came along. At 19, I figured out that it was a form of leading men on to date them, yet give them no chance of sleeping with me until some arbitrary future date when I was ready to have kids. So I took myself out of the game. I have not dated in six years. My self-imposed sexual isolation is complicated by the fact that I am now overweight and have abnormal hair growth. (I have to shave my face and chest daily.)

For years, my inner emotional life has been locked between aching loneliness and cold emptiness. My friends and my family, though warm and loving, are no longer enough. I want more, I want physical comfort and emotional gratification. I want sexual contact. But I just can't seem to get over my original reasoning and self-conscious body issues.

Of the columnists I've read, you are the bluntest. Help.

Frigid Frustrated Fool



The weight? Lose it. Join a gym, buy a bike, walk an hour a day. Move more, eat less—it ain't rocket science.

The hair? Lose it. Go to an electrologist or a laser-hair-removal joint and have your face and chest hair blasted away forever.

The self-pity? Lose it. While it sucks to be fat, FFF, you have to take responsibility for letting yourself get fat. (And, hey, some guys dig fat chicks.) While it sucks to have to shave your chest and face every day, FFF, there are worse physical challenges. (And, hey, some guys dig hairy chicks.) And while it sucks to be dumped, there's nothing spectacular about the dating misery you experienced as a teenager. Used? Dumped? Settled for? It happens to the best of us.

The 12-year-old? You need to murder that dumb cunt.

That sounds harsh, I realize, but I speak from experience. You see, FFF, I decided, at age 12, that parental disapproval, religious condemnation, and social ostracism were things I didn't want to worry about, so I resolved never to come out of the closet. Instead, I would learn how to become a priest or fuck girls, and I gave both options my best shot. (Hey there, Quigley Preparatory Seminary North! Hey there, Wanda!) But by age 26, FFF, I was out, my parents were over it, and I was living in Berlin with my first serious boyfriend. I couldn't have gotten the physical comfort and gratification that I ached for—to say nothing of the bruises and rope burns—if I hadn't wrapped my hands around the throat of that scared, pansy-assed, 12-year-old faggot and squeezed the life out of him.

Reading your letter, FFF, was like hearing from that 12-year-old faggot again. You made the same mistakes at 12 that I did, but whereas I wanted to avoid the potentially painful consequences of crushing disapproval, you wanted to avoid the potentially painful consequences of unplanned pregnancy. We both ran away from our desires in order to protect ourselves from the pain we feared. But our youthful attempts to avoid the possibility of pain by denying ourselves love and intimacy only succeeded in bringing down upon us the certain pain of aching loneliness and cold emptiness.

So, FFF, just as I had to get out there and risk being disowned by my family, getting tossed out of my church, and contracting a potentially fatal sexually transmitted disease in order to find physical comfort, emotional gratification, and sexual contact, you're going to have to get out there and risk getting pregnant, contracting diseases, and getting hurt to find the physical comfort, emotional gratification, and sexual contact that you need. There's no other way. Will you find love if you start taking risks? Maybe, maybe not. But I guarantee that you won't find love sitting on your ass in your apartment obsessing about pregnancy and downing pints of ice cream.

You can do this, FFF. If I could kill that scared 12-year-old fag, FFF, you can kill that dumb 12-year-old cunt. Just wrap your hands around her throat and squeeze.